Adding Audio Files and Synchronise them with Aeneas

elke · July 16, 2019, 5:04pm

Hello, I’m new to using RAB and want to make a Kids-Book with highlighted Text while the Audio-File is played. I’m using the RAB on a Mac.

I use several audio files, one for each page. When I was doing the Synchronization using Aeneas, to get the timing files, only the first audio-file was connected to a timing file. What do I need to do that all audio files get synchronised?

The audio for each chapter is a story and a question. The Text is a story and a question and than the scripture reference. What setting do I need for the synchronisation that the scripture reference is not part of the audio-synchronisation?

Another question is, it seems like as soon as I update the text-file (I’m using a Word-Document), the Motion of the Pictures is set on “no motion”. It does not matter what was specified before. Is it like this? Or is there a way, that the picture motion is not changed when the text-file is updated?

Ian_McQuay · July 17, 2019, 12:37am

Welcome to the community.

When you click on the books name in the left side of RAB and click on Book tab on the right side, what Book Type shows up?

If the type is Picture Book then in the Audio Files tab there will be a set of options for how audio is linked.

Unlike above you want to choose the second option.

elke · July 17, 2019, 8:32am

Hello Ian,

Thanks very much for your reply. The Book Type that shows up is Picture Story book and I had “use several audio files, one for each page” clicked before I started the synchronisation with Aeneas. What I got out is this:

Anything else I need to do?

Ian_McQuay · July 17, 2019, 9:15am

When naming the Audio it is good to use a name and end with the page number.

book-name_1.mp3
book-name_2.mp3
book-name_3.mp3

How are you starting the Audio Synchronization? From the view above on the Audio Files tab or from the Audio Synchronization tab?

Both are possible, but if you start from the Audio Files page you have to highlight all the pages to get them all to sync.

AndrewS · July 18, 2019, 2:51pm

The challenge with Scripture references in the text is that they usually include parenthesis (brackets) and / or colons and commas, which by default are phrase-ending markers for Aeneas. Are you doing phrase-by-phrase highlighting, or complete sentences? Complete sentences would be better in this case, making sure your end of sentence characters don’t have any of the characters you’re using in the reference. You could then just use the “fine tune timings” features to make your highlights include the scripture reference, even though it isn’t voiced. Another alternative is using footnotes and putting the references in them. I’m not sure if RAB includes footnotes, but I know it works in SAB, which can also do storybooks. Maybe Ian knows a better way???

AndrewS · July 18, 2019, 2:53pm

Also, be sure to save your project before updating the source file. Hopefully that will retain the motion info you’ve set.

Ian_McQuay · July 19, 2019, 1:03am

If the references are not spoken, you can use the Sync changes to remove the references by Regular Expression. Or if they are spoken then you could use Regular Expression to find the the references and remove the () around the reference and thus not have it break the phrase there.

To remove references:

Find: \([^\)]+\)
Replace:

To remove just the punctuation from (Mat 10:5)

Find: \(([\w]+) (\d+):(\d+)\)
Replace: $1 $2 $3

Depending on what else is in the text it may be easier to remove the : and () from the phrase breaking characters.

elke · July 24, 2019, 2:22pm

Thanks very much for that. Sorry I was travelling. I renamed the files and I made sure that all are highlighted while starting the Synchronisation. But the result was the same.

Does it help if I send you the protocol? Could it be a problem that I’m using iOS? At some places I added ❊❊❊ to protect the project.

*** Audio-Text Synchronization with aeneas ***

Version
:

File Count : 1

*** B001 01 ***

Audio : mfb_6.1.1.mp3

Phrases : C01-01-B001-01-aeneas.txt

Output : C01-01-B001-01-timing.txt

Head : None

Tail : Detect between 0.00 and 10.00 seconds

python -m aeneas.tools.execute_task '/Users/❊❊❊

[INFO] Creating task…

[INFO] Creating task… done

[INFO] Executing task…

Full dictionary is not installed for ‘ru’

[INFO] Executing task… done

[INFO] Creating output sync map file…

[INFO] Creating output sync map file… done

[INFO] Created file ‘/Users/❊❊❊01-B001-01-timing.txt’

Time elapsed: 00:01

elke · July 24, 2019, 2:27pm

Thank you, I’m doing complete sentences Highlighting. Thanks for explaining Phrase-ending markers. You write that SAB als can do storybooks. Would it than in this case maybe better to use SAB?

elke · July 24, 2019, 2:42pm

The references are in the Style:

“Bookname, Chapternumber”

or

“Bookname, Chapternumber-Chapternumber”

What would be the regular expression to remove the reference?

They are at the end of each chapter. They are not spoken in the Audio-File. So they do not need to be highlighted and they do not need to be part of the timing-File for the Audio.